I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.
Not disagreeing. Just pushing back on cover-ups being rational. In many cases, the cover-up wasn't worth it. "Full revelation of the underlying bad act" would have been utterly survivable, even taking into account the odds of getting away with no consequence.
Yeah, my feel is that the underlying act was often enough survivable, but it didn't feel like it at the time. A cover-up attempt in state of panic is opposite of rational (except maybe in terms of calming your own nerves).
Guess some people like to play the odds. Rather than take 50% damage, they choose to gamble between 0% damage (cover up successful) and 100% damage (cover up failed and isn’t survivable) - they are equivalent in terms of expected value.
JumpCrisscross|2 years ago
TeMPOraL|2 years ago
TerrifiedMouse|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
selcuka|2 years ago
Did you mean "we don't know"?
belter|2 years ago
vGPU|2 years ago
The Dalai Lama literally pulled down a six figure paycheck from the CIA, for example. The government was, is, and will continue to spy on you.
The difference is that if something is successfully covered up for 10-20-30 years, by the time the public finds out about it nobody really cares.